Discharge Planning Committee Minutes-02/25/16

Present-Jerome, Duana Bremer, Lori Hallas, Lori Scheder, Laura Roenitz, Tami Prochazka, Tammy Westphal, Anne Walli

Not Present-Connie Hanson, Adrian Dinkel-Smith. Stacey Cicero, Martha Cranely, Audra O’Connell, Steve Mahan, Tina Wold, Peggy Brown

Excused-Chris Lashock, GaiLorenzen, Heather Krueger

Jerome began the meeting asking if someone might be interested in co-chairing the committee. No one seemed to be interested. Duana volunteered to help in March and September when Jerome would not be able to attend due to other commitments.

Jerome started out asking some questions about the current Balance of State Discharge Planning Policy that was developed in 2015 and adopted at the November 2015 quarterly meeting. Jerome asked some questions about Guiding Principle #3 and whose responsibility it was document why temporary shelter placement was unavoidable. Someone mentioned that they felt it was the accepting agency’s responsibility to document the reasons.

The committee then discussed the four core areas where the committee is focusing its discharge planning efforts. The possibility of having representatives from these four areas assist with future work might be helpful. Committee member (name) has had discussions with a Probation & Parole agent in Polk County that has been involved in some local discharge planning efforts and has had a very positive impact. (Committee Member name) indicated this agent has expressed an interest in helping to craft procedures to help local Coc’s to work with agents to coordinate discharge planning.

In terms of deciding where to start focusing our work, the committee felt that the two areas that were in need of urgent attention and would require the most work was the corrections area and mental health area.

Lastly, there was discussion about what the committee hoped to achieve. It was mentioned that the outcome of the committee work should be to provide local Coc’s with written guidelines that they could follow that would help them develop customized discharge plans that make sense for their specific area.

Questions to be answered for next meeting:

  • What is the actual HUD requirement for discharge planning? Does the BOSCOC merely need a policy? Does each local Coc need their own?
  • What is expected of each local Coc with regard to the creation of their plans and how is this work going to be tracked? Will it be part of the monitoring process?

Action items:

  • Determine actual HUD mandate-Jerome
  • Start “draft” procedure for corrections area that contains objectives and various elements related to development of a coordinated discharge plan.-Jerome